


Dream A Little Dream of Me

by Pen_n_Notebook (WhiteDoveSails)



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: 5 Times, F/M, Night Terrors, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sharing a Bed, Sleeping Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-24 22:20:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22225420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiteDoveSails/pseuds/Pen_n_Notebook
Summary: Five times Roy and Riza slept beside each other.
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 10
Kudos: 93





	Dream A Little Dream of Me

**Author's Note:**

> Cross posted on ff.net under the pen name Pen 'n Notebook. This is meant to be a 5+1 story, so one day there will be a related story about the one time Roy and Riza actually sleep together. It's currently half written, stay tuned. 
> 
> Shout Out to madetine who read this ages ago and never complained. That. It. Took. Me. Months. To. Post.
> 
> First Royai story! The excitement is real.

* * *

1\. (Sleepless Chill)

The fireplace was the only source of heat in the house. 

And yet Riza Hawkeye laid freezing in front of the hearth, curled tightly in the quilt from her bed. Her fingers twisted into the fabric searching for warmth. Despite the thick wool stockings she clumsily mended, her toes still felt chilled. Worse, her left shoulder ached from sleeping on the hardwood floor of her father’s study for the second night in a row as the blizzard wind roared outside.

Rolling over risked unfurling the protective layer. It also risked the creaky floorboards waking the other two people in the room. So she lay quietly in the dark, willing her sore muscles to relax.

They didn’t. 

Riza wondered if her father had fallen asleep at his desk. The scratching of his quill tip stopped minutes ago, which meant he was either lost in thought or asleep amid the piles of papers and books. She hoped for the latter. Maybe if he rested more he wouldn’t be so irritable.

Not likely. Even Riza found herself more annoyed confined inside with the two alchemists. 

Roy lay beside her wrapped in his own bedding, equally restless but too cold to do more than stare at the cracks forming on the ceiling. Knowing him, he was probably constructing the alchemic circles in his head needed to fix them.

In the dim light of the coals, she saw he had that look in his eyes. Riza could only describe it as focused, when he pieced formulas together, thinking of the symbols and calculations needed for alchemy.

He probably wished he was back in Central right now, she supposed, warm in his family’s home. Each summer and winter he returned there for three long weeks. In Roy’s absence Father locked himself in his study to “research uninterrupted.” During that time Riza’s shoes echoed too loudly as she wandered aimlessly from chore to chore in the silent house. A series of blizzards prevented Roy from walking to the train station this year. Father assured him the trains couldn’t run in this weather anyway and he was better off staying as long as he kept silent and left his master in peace.

Roy has never celebrated the solstice with them before. Though Riza was ashamed to admit not much celebration would place regardless of his presence. 

She and Roy lay with their heads toward the fire, each cocooned in a quilt to hold out the draft seeping through the four walls. They couldn’t afford to heat the entire house, not until Roy brought back his next tuition. Riza dreaded to think how long it would take to travel through the post service in this weather.

Her father’s student couldn’t sleep either. Roy shifted his gaze from the ceiling to her, surprised to find her watching him. The floorboards groaned as he rolled onto his side to face her. Riza rolled onto her back, taking the pressure off her aching shoulder. The floor protested.

“Be Quiet!” Her father snapped from the desk behind her. Riza tensed waiting for him to threaten to kick them out, but he shouted no more. 

The cold air pervaded, sapping all strength and warmth. Riza longed to add another log to the fire but she and Roy needed to make the pitiful stack of logs in the woodbox last all night until they could get more from the woodshed tomorrow when the blizzard cleared. 

If the blizzard cleared, she thought nervously. It didn’t matter if the wood wet with snow. Roy removed the water so the flames burned hotter.

Her eyes met Roy’s and he smiled reassuringly, as if he wasn’t just as uncomfortable. 

A little less than a foot of distance separated them. So close … and yet the space between them was as vast as the silence that overtook her father’s study. This was the closest she had ever been to the older boy. If she were daring enough, Riza could reach out a hand and touch him. But she didn’t. It was too cold.

* * *

2\. (Catnap in the Lion’s Den)

His unit just finished sector 34. Since the victory at Dhula, Ishval’s capital two weeks ago, the war involved less outright combat. For that Roy was thankful since he and his squadron no longer risked dying by the Ishavalan’s guerilla warfare tactics.

Instead he carried out Executive Order 3066, clearing out the last of the resistance. (That’s what the State officially called it and Roy bit his tongue so hard it bled when he was forced to do the same.) Except, there was no resistance. Few Ishvalans had the means to fight back after the army seized the weaponry stockpiles from Aurego.

Roy and the other alchemists slaughtered any Ishvalan found alive. No matter their age or gender. The remaining Ishvallans Roy encountered begged for their lives. At least, they tried to before he snapped his fingers.

Two days ago this area had been filled with people. Now it was empty.

The scent of smoke clung to his clothes, irritating his nose, until Roy was sure he would never be able to smell anything else ever again. Not the perfume that his sisters wore in Central, the spring flowers peddled in the open market, or the soup from his favorite diner. No matter how far away he sent the flames, the smell lingered.

If he was lucky the smoke covered up the scent of burnt flesh.

The midday heat beat relentlessly on the troops still in the sector, forcing them to take a break from the sweltering sun overhead. Roy, Maes, and Riza sat on the ground in the shade of a sandstone building while they ate their rations and wetted cracked lips with warm water from their canteens.

Roy passed Maes the meat tin in his pack automatically. As long as the smoky scent remained on his skin his stomach rolled at the thought of eating it.

They had two more hours, according to his pocket watch, until the sun sank low enough to start killing again. Maes breathed steadily to Roy’ right, meditating on happier thoughts while he rested. Riza sat to his left, her eyes closed in tiredness and hands still tightly clutching her wrapped rifle. She had just come off her nine-hour shift stationed on the rooftops of the ruined city.

Her head nodded forward until she jerked awake, saw no danger, and shifted back into a comfortable position against the wall. 

The first time she approached him in the desert, Roy recognized her instantly. Little Riza Hawkeye, the silent, steady presence of Hawkeye manor. His companion in loneliness. During his apprenticeship he often studied in the kitchen while she cooked dinner. Together they navigated his master’s eccentric moods and shared their academic achievements.

She was no larger than when he last saw her at her father’s funeral, but weariness made her look older. She had always been so mature and practical. After she gave Roy her father’s research she insisted that she would be fine alone in that broken down house. If he watched out for her better, sent money or brought her to Central to work, she might not have followed him as a soldier.

Now Riza’s eyes were ringed with dark sleepless circles. Her soul haunted, equally damned like his.

She had given him the secrets to her father’s infernal alchemy after all. How many had died because she put her trust in the wrong person?

Riza’s head lulled sideways again, but she didn’t wake. This time her short blonde hair touched his white desert coat. Tiredly, she leaned further until her head rested against his shoulder.

Roy didn’t move until the military’s bell rang through the ruined city. If one of them deserved any moment of peace out here, it was Riza Hawkeye. Certainly not him.

Wordlessly he nudged her awake until she sat up again. Shame stopped them from saying anything as they stood, dusted the sand from their coats, and went back to war.

* * *

3\. (Snuggly!Mustang)

Riza Hawkeye had never shared a bed in her life.

There had been no one to share with. She had no siblings, nor any playmates growing up that could have spent the night. Sleeping in a room full of other young women in the military barracks the first night at the academy shocked her. Every creaky bedspring and rustle of sheets stirred her back to consciousness.

Sharing a bed, as far as Riza was concerned, was a learned skill. One she had not yet mastered. Aside from sex, she had no idea why anyone would want to share a bed.

The colonel, on the other hand took to sharing her bed naturally, as if he had been ready to sleep beside someone his entire life.

Tonight she woke too hot, her nightshirt drenched in sweat and sticking unpleasantly against her stomach. Damp sheets twisted around her bare legs. Even her underwear was wet for all the wrong reasons. In her drowsy, irritated state the irony of the Flame Alchemist’s presence super heating her bed was not lost on Riza.

Mustang slept on, desensitized to feeling heat after years of practicing his alchemy.

Riza, desperate to escape their private inferno, tried to move in order to throw the comforter off of them before he overheated in his sleep. But he felt her move and shifted too, pulling her closer against his chest. The colonel wrapped an arm around her waist with a crushing grip and threw his left leg overtop her own, pinning her in place.

Riza in her annoyance considered waking him out of spite. Several crude phrases she learned as a soldier nearly slipped from her mouth, but in the end, she silently pushed away from him enough to kick back the covers. It wasn’t Mustang’s fault that he wanted to hold her close. Their nights together were so rare. 

Cool fresh air rushed over her skin, the relief immediate. Riza contemplated taking her nightshirt off and sleeping naked, like the man beside her, but thought better of it.

While she had accepted the scaring on her back, the colonel’s guilt had not. She wouldn’t let it be the first thing he saw in the morning.

With more effort, she peeled away from his body completely, striped, and put on a clean cotton nightshirt before slipping back into bed. Mustang’s arm instinctively curled around her again.

What they were doing was illegal. She knew this. He knew this. The fraternization laws existed for a reason, to protect both them and the state. They were selfish, terrible people seeking comfort in each other’s arms. A comfort neither of them deserved. 

She refused to use the colonel’s name for fear of it slipping from her lips in the wrong moment, giving them away. They should be brought before the military court one day. In fact, Riza and Mustang welcomed it, but not for breaking a law this inconsequential. They committed worse crimes than holding the other close in the dark. And yet, here they were. They still took the risk whenever she drew the curtains closed and invited him into her bed.

She relaxed back into the steady rhythm of Mustang’s breathes. It felt so easy, so natural. 

And Riza started to understand why sharing a bed was better than sleeping alone.

* * *

4\. (Late Nights)

Colonel Mustang was without a doubt, the most hardworking, most efficient laziest man Riza Hawkeye had ever met. His persona, the carefree playboy colonel, was nothing more than a mask crafted to hide his ambitious nature. An unfortunate necessity. And in Riza’s opinion he took too much pleasure in the charade.

Napping midday in the records room … flirting with Brigadier General Hammon’s secretary … napping in the office … indulging Edward Elric’s immature name calling … napping in empty conference rooms … turning official documents into paper airplanes … games of chess with General Grumman.

The napping she forgave, the war was long over but there were still nights she didn’t sleep well. On the other hand, teasing Havoc about dating was absolutely unnecessary and a waste of time. 

Her colonel spent twice as much effort pretending not to work than he did writing his damn memos. At ten to twenty minutes per document, he could have finished them hours ago. Hours!

Instead he loudly bemoaned the chore. Then he finished them during lunch in the empty office. 

And yet all the time he wasted had nothing to do with the reason Riza was still in her uniform at Eastern headquarters at 2100 hours. They had never worked what could be called traditional hours. But if Riza had to stay until her hands cramped, her stomach ached with hunger, and her eyes turned red than so be it.

Tonight the rest of the team walked out at their usual hour, glancing at her with sympathetic eyes and a polite wave on their way out the door.

She sighed quietly, and tried to relieve the ache in her tense shoulders. At her desk Riza sorted through six stacks of papers tall enough to block her view of the coronel At least she didn’t have to worry about him working now since there was no one else to witness his productivity. He always worked well under deadlines.

As much as Riza enjoyed teasing Mustang about procrastinating, the colonel couldn’t have prevented the stacks of backed up expense reports, inter office memos, field reports, and whatever the unreadable notes from Colonel Nelson’s adjutant said. 

Two hours before leaving, four men from the other colonel’s team walked into Mustang’s office dumping the Wallfeld Mission files before starting on a last minute mission in the north-east. 

And of course the piles containing all of this information were meant to be condensed, proofread, and handed to Brigadier General Barnett tomorrow for inspection.

Considering the colonel had done the same not three months ago, she didn’t feel that sympathetic. She warned Mustang that the other officer might retaliate, but he waved away the thought carelessly. 

She was professional enough to not say, “I told you so” aloud. So she let her glare say it for her. 

The keys of Riza’s typewriter clacked loudly in the empty room as she rewrote a sloppy handwritten memo into a legible document. Mustang sorted through the various stacks of papers, reading endlessly dry field reports and accompanying maps. 

Neither were pleased. But they worked steadily into the night, eating dinner at their desks and stopping only long enough to stretch before continuing. 

“Lieutenant,” the Colonel said interrupting the easy silence of office. His voice breaking her focus, Riza looked up immediately. She leaned backward to see him around the stacks of paper overtaking her desk. 

“Go home,” he ordered, not looking up from the document in front of him. “Take care of yourself and your dog for an hour. All of this will be here when you get back.”

A soft smile crossed her lips and reached her tired eyes. “I already did, Sir. He’s under my desk.”

Mustang looked up quickly, startled he had missed her absence, much less a dog in the office. Sure enough, a small black and white tail poked out from under the desk. He raised one eyebrow towards his adjutant amused she of all people ignored the rules concerning animals in headquarters.

Hawkeye shrugged. “He’s well behaved. But you can write me up if you wish.”

Black Hayate slept. The two officers worked tirelessly signing and rewriting the necessary paperwork, adding the numbers to double check the correct budget amounts and supplies, filing in whatever blanks existed, and rewriting all of it into a tidy summary.

A little after 0500 in the morning, the colonel and Riza moved to sit on the couch to finish the final report. Riza sank gratefully into the soft cushions as she summarized the documents in her lap. The words on them looked blurrier than they had hours ago, but she stifled a yawn and blamed the room’s poor lighting. Beside her, Mustang nodded and listened, eyes drifting closed.

***

The latch on the office door snapped quietly as the handle turned. Roy, awakened by the sound, cracked opened a single bleary eye as Breda stepped into the office. The stout lieutenant stopped, took in the sight of his superior officers laying on the couch surrounded by papers scattered and stacked in sleep deprived organization before making eye contact with him. Breda nodded and backed out of the room closing the door quietly. 

Good. The second lieutenant wouldn’t let anyone else in for at least two more hours. 

Roy’s eyes fell to Hawkeye asleep opposite him curled against the couch’s armrest. At some point she loosened her hair from its regular clip and it fell across her shoulder like a golden waterfall. She deserved another two hours of sleep after working all night. 

Something warm, soft, and furry shifted on top of Roy’s head. Where else had he expected Black Hayate to sleep –– on the floor like a normal animal? They would have to find a way to hide the dog for the rest of the day, but he could worry about that later. Tired and comfortable, Roy ignored the weight of the puppy on his head, closed his eyes, and fell asleep again. 

* * *

5\. (Night Terrors) 

Roy woke when the bed shook beneath him. At attention, ready to fight at a moment’s notice, he sat up quickly. Riza’s darkened bedroom provided little light, especially with the curtains drawn to block the faint yellow lamplight from Central’s streets. 

Beside him, Riza thrashed, flinching violently. A low, soft groan died in her throat as her limbs flailed in panic. Roy knew instantly. 

Night terrors. 

He himself had been victim to many during the war and immediately after it. 

He knew the moment Riza woke because she stopped moving, frozen by the images haunting her mind. Sharp, ragged breaths let him know his lieutenant was still beside him. Traumatized, but despite everything, alive.

But before Roy could reach out to break her from the terror’s grip, a small shadow jumped on the bed at their feet, collar jingling. Black Hayate moved intuitively, crawling over his owner until his front paws stood on her chest. His nose pointed downward sniffing for the disturbance that left her upset. Then the dog began to lick Riza’s face.

Roy didn’t know if the dog was a genius or acting instinctually, but the naughty behavior forced Riza to push him away. 

The spell holding her captive broke. She began to pet him as Black Hayate’s mournful wide eyes watched her earnestly. The motion, slow and absent minded, soothed them both as Riza’s fingers stroked through the dog’s soft fur. 

“Hawkeye,” Roy asked, voice breaking through the darkness. “Are you here?”

Not _are you alright?_ He knew better than to ask; of course she wasn’t. Neither of them had been alright for years. Without their goal, his goal, to reach the top and become Fuhrer one day driving their every action, Roy didn’t know how they would have coped. Giving into the guilt weighing heavily in their chests would have been too easy. 

Wherever her mind had been, he needed her back in the present now. In the safety of her untidy bedroom with her loving, loyal dog on top of her and Roy by her side. 

She didn’t answer immediately, but Roy heard her breaths even out as she calmed. 

Silence stretched between them until she responded. “I’m here.” Her voice too quiet, ashamed. 

Now that she was back, Roy dared to find one of her hands in the darkness and hold it. Her small fingers gripped his tightly in relief, in thanks. 

This was not the first time, nor the last for either of them. Roy remembered his own panic, waking in unfamiliar places, thumb and middle finger pinched tight ready to snap at nonexistent threats. Past and present muddled in his mind. 

It was so much harder to deal with alone without anyone or anything to ground him to reality. More often than not, Roy stayed awake in his own apartment each night. Finishing paperwork, researching, exercising, or reading about political theory. So when he chose to sleep at headquarters surrounded by his team, Hawkeye rarely stopped him.

They didn’t talk about the night terrors. No sense dwelling on their fears. 

“Would you like to get up?” he offered, yawning. “I’ll make tea.” 

Hawkeye didn’t like to go back to sleep immediately, afraid the dreams would return. At least they didn’t have to work tomorrow, and could take all the time they needed. 

“Thank you.” She let go of his hand to get up and Roy followed her into the rest of her apartment, the rooms devoid of personal effects. Black Hayate trotted at his heels.

He filled the kettle and lit the stove as Hawkeye went straight for the sink, finding some flaw in the clean dishes and washed them all over again. The simple task kept her hands busy, her mind focused on the mundane until the kettle whistled. 

Roy pulled aside the freshly washed mugs and filled them generously. She only owned two, never expecting more company. 

They took their drinks back to her couch cradling the hot ceramic. Black Hayate jumped up and lay beside her. But by the time the drinks were finished, Riza turned to lean against Roy and Black Hayate climbed into her lap. They woke the next morning stiff and sore, but happier.


End file.
